costadina wrote:iI believe that whether exams are a waste of time of not depends on how you use them. If you use them to measure a students ability and to find their weak spots in order to help them improve, then they are useful. If you use them as the only way of measuring their competency, then I don't think they are the best way to measure competency. Most students preform badly in exams due to stress. ][/i]

Exams is one of the ways to test a learner. We must integrate a student's test result with his/her other performance. It's better to put about 70% in the test and 30% in other performances, say, for English as a Second Languge, the learners have to use English to communicate with their partners besides their paper test.

well, i don't think exam is a waste of time.
for me, exam is a good method to let me know if i really understand the topic. you know, during lessons, we are used to listening to teachers' lectures and very often, we don't know if we understand the topic. exams can help us to know if we really understand the topic because there is no teacher sitting besides us during the exam and no one will guide us in answering the question. so, if we understand the topic, we will be able to answer all the questions and get a good grade, and vice versa.

Although most of us hate exam,i don't think it is a waste of time.On the contrary,if there is no more exam to test how much we have learnt so far,it will be a waste of time. It is because most of us have laziness, if there is no exam,will we have the self-motivation to study? I doubt. I think exam is just like an engine,one which pushes us to study hard and leading us to the bright future. Therefore, i can say with certainty that exam is needed, it is not a waste of time.

Hey i have been shocked,,,,,,
how can exams be a waste of time!!
The exams show how well you study for a particular period of time. There could be plenty of ways that can prove your level.
But, i do not think there is none as good as exams.

The homework or assignment cannot be the way of criticizing students' level because other people outside of school can help students secretly.

But how about the exams? everyone is doing exams on the same day, same time. Most of all, students have to study for the exams, unless they want to fail.

exam is a waste of time in Hong Kong
orianted educational system is the cause of such problem
students have their nose in the book and they have no idea on the things around them. Their own job is to memorize all the things and write that things in the exam paper
It's meaningless!
they don't know how useful of the knowledge and how can they use it in their daily life.

Exams, exams, exams... They're useful to measure, in certain extent, your competence in any area. Depending on how they're designed, they can let you test your ability or, on the contrary, make you go nuts.

That's why I agree with you, Dale: the educational system of our countries could change radically our concept about exams, studies and homework.

It also depends on how you take it: as a challenge, or a trouble. There are different aspects that change our mind about exams , including the teacher, the subject, the topic and the number of questions (which usually is large)!

Another interesting question would be
Are exams a friendly actiity to waste time?

Exams, as any part of studying whether it be another language or another topic, are an essential part of finding out how much you really know and have learned from the course. If you don't like them, it may be because you haven't made the most of your opportunity to learn that subject. What's the point of trying to learn something if you aren't going to do a check once in a while to see if you really understand what you've been trying to learn?

Would you bake a cake and then not bother to find out if you made a cake that tastes delicious by never eating it?

konomi&peter wrote: We think University enterance exam is a waste of time because we only have to memorise a lot of things that don't need in our future. After exam, we forgot everything.

We have to find another methods to enter University, especially in Asia countries. We think the important thing is what we want to study in University.

I agree with you there. Taking a test to get into university doesn't make sense. If you are only memorising information that is otherwise unnecessary, why are you taking the test? A better way, I think, is to look at all of your grades when you are in high school. When you are already in university, though, I think exams for each class are very useful.

cassie wrote:Exams, as any part of studying whether it be another language or another topic, are an essential part of finding out how much you really know and have learned from the course. If you don't like them, it may be because you haven't made the most of your opportunity to learn that subject. What's the point of trying to learn something if you aren't going to do a check once in a while to see if you really understand what you've been trying to learn?

Would you bake a cake and then not bother to find out if you made a cake that tastes delicious by never eating it?

We agree with you because taking exams are necessary to know how much we really know and have learned from our classes.
However,exams make us very nervous and stressful.Sometimes,we have to do many things all day and stay up all night....
Some of students care about exams too much!!
For example in Korea when students fail the exam for entering University, sometimes they suicide. It's so terrible!!
Exams are important but we think the progress is the most important thing.Teachers should not care only about exams.

rocely wrote::D Hi, everyone!I think exams are important to know your level You know, all of the students hate exams, but if there were not exams, how can we measure our ablities Yes, I know test time is hard to stand because we are sometime nervous and have to saturate new information.

There is an easy way to take exams If you prepare a little part everyday, you can be ready for your final test

You're right!!!!
If We study constantly, we can take gooood! score what we want, but the problem is that we don't like study everyday

in my opinion, it's not exactly a wast of time. but many times it's not fair with the students. it's necessary to create new ways to know how much the student have learned where the teacher participate more of the learning process having a better knowledge about the student level.

whats an exam? its different in different condition. i would like to specify what i think from my experience.
when i was in the university, its really a burden for me to take an exam, there are too many exams and it means too much for a student, especially seems some exams made no sense for someone, but we have to join it and get a high score, in this case, i think its kind of waisting time. but for other case, exam will help us to know more knowledge, such as some majority cause, its important, exam helped one to review what s/he studied and what s/he gained from it.
when i am in work like now, exams is not really the same meaning as the exam we took before, we always learned a lot from book and experienced it in our work, so its some kind of exams already and its more practical... we can gain more money from it, its more interresting and have more fun.
as what i said, i think its wonderful studying in work and serving for work. its a great exam not wasting time in the society-more risky, more fun.